[UE4] Construction Site Environment

Nintendo46

Hey there guys. So thanks to all who helped me out here, i was able to start this little scene im working on right now. First time for me in Unreal Engine 4 so... well its a construction site scene shortly after the main concrete walls are finished.

There will also be some water and heating pipes, wires for the electricity and some tools. just havent modeled them yet.

im very open to any kind of comment, critisism etc so please let me know anything.


Alright here are some shots:





Does somebody know how to control the tiling in UE4? I didnt find an option to control how much i like a texture to tile on a brush so it looks very unrealistic:



Just doesnt look right, no one would use so many wood to create concrete..^^

I also have some weird shading on some staticMeshes that look like the following:





im not shure what it is could it be the lighting? or is it the material?

With best regards

Joel

Kar-re

Just a quick glance makes me think it has something to do with the lightmap seams and uv islands. You need to make them not overlap and have padding.

Nintendo46

Hi Kar-re

Thanks for you answer. But i made especially shure that the uvs arent overlapping on the metal Profiles. They do however overlap on the box.

Im also getting an error message saying: "Lightmap UVs overlapping by 30 %, please adjust content"

So does that mean unreal 4 doesnt allow overlapping uvs because of its lighting system?

but if it were so, why do i have artifacts on other static meshes like the metal profil which hasnt any overlapping uvs?

Kar-re

You have a second uv-set for all of your meshes where you unwrap them for the lightmapping process, look it up. In the box your lightmaps need to have each side a unique uv-island

Nintendo46

Ok so every static Mesh needs to have two uv sets right? But wouldnt i create that one im my 3d application?

marcobar

Yes, the best way to go about it is to create both sets in whichever app you're using before importing into the editor. I'm not sure which software package you're using, but it's very easy to do in Max: just slap a second 'Unwrap UVW' modifier on top of the object, and then set its Map channel to 2 (as opposed to the default 1). It will often give you a dialogue asking if you want to move/abandon existing UVs, to which you can just click 'Move' to clone channel 1's UVs into channel 2.

Nintendo46

Hi marcobar

Im using Maya but im searching the inet for a tutorial that will help me create that second uv channel.

And in the new unreal engine isnt there a new light system? do i have to use the lightmass-system or could i try "Global illumination" as my primary light system?

What do you think about the scene? looks way too clean isnt it?

Thanks for your answer, with best regards, Joel

marcobar

I'm new to UE4 (lots of experience with UDK, but am only just upgrading), but I'm still quite certain that precomputed lighting is still a big part of the workflow.

I did some flipping through the official documentation (Here if you're interested), and my impression is that while the indirect and dynamic lighting is a lot sharper than it was before, and you can put more lighting effects without having to build a lightmap than you could in UE3, you'll still want to use one for most of the scene lighting for better performance.

Hopefully someone else from the forum will correct me if I'm wrong, but what I took from that was that you should only go with all dynamic lights if your scene is very small or uncomplicated.

As for the scene: it looks like a great start to me, but I think it needs more props and objects to fill the space, but you already mentioned that you'll be adding more. It also needs far more variation in the textures. Right now the tiling on most of the surfaces is very obvious, and everything is more or less floating around a mid-tone brown or grey.

Nintendo46

Hello

i recreated the whole scene to make it look more realistic. I took care of the bad tiling and ajusted it accordingly. I also created some water- and heatingpipes with the machines to it.

what do you guys think?

im also very unsure about the lighting. Actually id like the scene to have two different light settings, day and night. But i have no idea how to go about lighting my environment.. anyone got some tips or hints?

so heres the updated scene











im very open to all kinds of critiques, comments, hints etc. please let me know (what im doing wrong?:))

Nintendo46

Hi there

Im back with some updates from my little scene. I have been placing some new cardboard and boilers in the scene. I still think it feels very empty somehow.. Somethings missings but i dont know what exactly.

Well Comments and Critiques are always more than welcome

here are the shots:







and im also not shure whats wrong with these meshes. They seem to be some kind of invisible inside... Whats wrong with them. Do i have to close the up, because i deleted some faces on the inside



Thanks for your time

with best regards, Joel

Holland

Hi Joel, you either need to change the materiel to be 2 sided or shell the inside of the pipe. It's probably just better to set the material to be 2 sided though. Keep up the good work

Nintendo46

Hey there Guys

@ Holland Thanks for the tip. The 2sided option removed the invisibility of the pipes. Thanks for that.

And for the scene, well i decided to create three last screenshots and call this done. Its purpose was mainly to get myself comfortable with the engine so thats been done.

However id like to create a new scene but before that i have to read some tutorials about lighting and definately material creation. Also i would like to work with a concept, it has been quite unpleasing working with this scene, since i didnt have any sort of concept art( in fact i had a little but it looks just too different, because my modeling skills arent that great yet.)

Thats also something which i wanna adress before i move to another scene. I need more preparation before starting something big like this.

Well enough talk, here are the three last shots( click for higRes)







And thanks so much for all the help i got here, you guys really rock.

Thanks a lot

With best regards, Joel

pixelpatron

You'd have a stronger piece had you done your reference homework.

I googled "construction site interior"

and in the first four images this popped up:



So, breaking down this image there are a lot of things that would make your compositions not only more interesting; but by including some of the elements from this ref, and taking notice of the following based on the image (see below).......implementing this feedback will lead you to a stronger environment and make you a better world builder/environment artist.

Things that I'd pull from the image to take into account on tackling a "construction site interior":

• The amazing roof, your roof is flat. Your missing out on an easy low poly structure that adds a ton of silhouettes and negative space. Not to mention amazing lighting opportunities. (You really should consider adding this).
  
• Tools, interesting shapes, opportunity for hard surface models.
  
• Buckets, used boxes, trash. A construction site is in a constant state of mess. And construction workers usually throw trash anywhere that is convenient. (trash is usually just built over).
  
• Unfinished walls, scaffolding, support beams, holes in drywall with cords/wiring sticking out.
  
• Temporary lighting and cords. Your current lighting solution is really odd and would not be wired only to be removed when the space was to be finished.

All in all, do your homework, find interesting shapes, assets that can tell stories, opportunities to add color splashes, and most of all, don't take shortcuts, if something looks like it's going to be hard to do......your on the right track.

Nintendo46

hello PixelPatron

Thanks for your time, youve really nailed down what i have to do next time.

The reference homework was something i havent done very well and thats why this scene kinda sucks... Well i gotta do my homework and i will first improve my modeling skills so i can create the tools for example. Im not able to model that well right now so i need some time to learn this all. Anyways thanks for tips, ill definetly include those in my next project and that is going to look better, i promise

So thanks to all who have written to me here

wish you all the best and see you later

Greetz Joel

robochrish

This is looking good so far.
As pixelpatron said, make sure you are doing your homework.
Great reference will lead to a great scene!
I would look at toning down the bright colours as well.
Keep up the good work though!